1.4 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND: THREE FINNISH GAMBLING DISPOSITIFS
I have chosen to use Michel Foucault’s concept of dispositif as a theoretical framework for my study because the concept offers me a possibility to name and analyse the ensemble considered gambling in the Finnish (and to some extent in Swedish and Nordic) contexts. I have been inspired by the observations by social historian Matti Peltonen, who claims that there is a misconception of Foucault’s methods in the social sciences and cultural studies. Peltonen states that Foucault did work both on the nondiscursive (I call them practices) and the discursive elements, whereas the mainstream has understood Foucault’s method as discourse analysis. Furthermore, Foucault
68 Young 2010, 259.
69 Husz 2004, 335.
70 Husz 2004, 26–28.
71 Casey 2008, 3–5. I agree with Casey 2008, 6 that it may be potentially dangerous to condemn gambling (or in Casey’s case the UK National Lottery play) as irrational: “Such an explanation is inadequate because it ignores the social and cultural structures of gambling behaviour, positions Lottery play as a meaningless and pointless activity, and overlooks any exploration of the subjective pleasures that might motivate women to purchase Lottery tickets.”
stressed that these elements were neither historically constant nor ordained.
72
Foucault defines dispositif as follows (in the English translation version dispositif is called apparatus. I have chosen to use the original French term dispositif)73:
“What I’m trying to pick out with this term is, firstly, a thoroughly heterogeneous ensemble consisting of discourses, institutions, architectural forms, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical, moral and philanthropic propositions – in short, the said as much as the unsaid.
Such are the elements of the apparatus. The apparatus itself is the system of relations than can be established between these elements.
Secondly, what I am trying to identify in this apparatus is precisely the nature of the connection that can exist between these heterogeneous elements. Thus, a particular discourse can figure at one time as the programme of an institution, and at another it can function as a means of justifying or masking a practice which itself remains silent, or as a secondary re-interpretation of this practice, opening out for it a new field of rationality. In short, between these elements, whether discursive or non-discursive, there is a sort of interplay of shifts of position and modifications of function which can also vary very widely. Thirdly, I understand by the term 'apparatus' a sort of – shall we say formation which has as its major function at a given historical moment that of responding to an urgent need. The apparatus thus has a dominant strategic function”. 74
What makes dispositif especially useful and appealing to a social historian is the idea of dispositif consisting of such heterogeneous discourses and practices and being so tied to a certain time and place.75 It also seems that the dispositifs of control are not totalizing meaning that resistance and revolt are
72 Peltonen 2004, 206; 214–215. See also article V, 119-120; 131, on my understanding of dispositif. Historian Aija Kaartinen 2012, 289–290, has summarized nicely the way she used and understood the concept of dispositif in her study of Finnish women’s opinions and actions concerning the Finnish Prohibition (1919-1932): “The best tool for structuring the object of my research is Michel Foucault’s concept of dispositif, which helps in the strategic formulation of the key questions. With the help of this concept, it is possible to ”package” the concrete reality called prohibition culture, i.e. the entity of actions and cultural phenomena, into one whole. It is important to note that the discourses alone do not constitute the object of the study although they are in the very core of it.”
73 Philosopher Martin Kutsch (1991, 143) explains the several meanings the word dispositive has: “The last, not straightforwardly translatable word has several meanings, for instance, "an ensemble of parts that constitute an apparatus or machine", "an ensemble of measures that constitute an organization or plan", and "an ensemble of (material) precautions and means for carrying out a strategic, military operation". The last-mentioned meaning harmonizes especially well with Foucault's liking for military terminology.”
74 Foucault 1980, 194–195.
75 Important works for my understanding of Foucault’s methodology and especially dispositive have been Foucault 1978, 1980, and 1991; Veyne 1997; Dean 1998, and 1999; Peltonen 2004, and in Finnish Helén 1997 and 2016; Eriksson 1999; Selin 2010, 2011a, and 2011b, and Koivusalo 2011, and 2012.
always possible.76 And there is the possibility for unexpected effects or as Foucault argues: Dispositif can produce “An entirely unforeseen effect which had nothing to do with any kind of strategic ruse on the part of some meta- or trans-historic subject conceiving and willing it”77.
What does Foucault mean by practices and by analyzing practices?
Archeologist and historian Paul Veyne notes that Foucault “made the effort to see people’s practices as they really are; what he is talking about is the same thing every historian talks about, namely, what people do”78, whereas sociologist Mitchell Dean states that Foucault’s analysis concentrates on 'regimes of practices' by which Dean means “the more or less organized or routinized ways of doing things that manifest an immanent logic or reason of their own79”. For Foucault practices are not to be reduced to the level of institutions, ideologies, circumstances, contexts or the subject but treated with a kind of positivity.80 Or as Foucault put it:
“It is a question of analysing a 'regime of practices' – practices being understood here as places where what is said and what is done, rules imposed and reasons given, the planned and the taken for granted meet and interconnect”81.
Foucault talks of discourses being the “tactical elements or blocks operating in the field of force relations”, where there can be “different and even contradictory discourses within the same strategy” that can “circulate without changing their form from one strategy to another, opposing strategy82”. As I have stated in article V, I have wanted to analyse the discourses and practices that have shaped Finnish gambling dispositifs by taking also into consideration the ‘forgotten’ and ‘wrong’ discourses and practices that for various reasons never became the ones to dominate the way gambling is thought of or experienced in Finland.83 This brings my aim close to the idea of Foucauldian genealogy where taken-for-granted ‘truths’ are seen as historical constructs having roots in a specific time and place. Following the genealogical idea I have wanted to ask what historical discourses and practises have produced the current Finnish gambling culture as a specific form of risk making and risk taking.84
76 Frost 2015, 21.
77 Foucault 1980, 195.
78 Veyne 1997, 156.
79 Dean 1998, 185.
80 Dean 1998, 185.
81 Foucault 1991, 75.
82 Foucault 1978, 101–102.
83 See article V, 119–120. See Foucault 1978, 94–95: “”Power relations are both intentional and nonsubjective. --- there is no power that is exercised without a series of aims and objectives. But this does not mean that it results from the choice or decision of an individual subject--- the logic is perfectly clear, the aims decipherable, and yet it is often the case that no one is there to have invented them, and few who can be said to have formulated them:”.
84 Saukko 2010, 133.
When it comes to risk and gambling studies, especially Foucault’s concept of governmentality has been put to use in many studies. Sociologist Deborah Lupton states that Foucauldian governmentality has had the perspective of understanding risk strategies and discourses as a
“means of ordering the social and material worlds through methods of rationalization and calculation, attempts to render disorder and uncertainty more controllable. It is these strategies and discourses that bring risk into being, that select certain phenomena as being ‘risky’
and therefore requiring management, either by institutions or individuals.”85
Foucault’s concept of heterotopia has also been discussed in gambling studies.86 To my knowledge only anthropologist Rebecca Cassidy has used dispositif in the gambling studies while engaged in her “micro-ethnography of gambling” which deals with interviews of one professional horse race bettor to show how changes both in taxation and regulation have affected the experience of horserace betting in the UK.87 Cassidy explains her choice of the concept of ‘apparatus’ (i.e. dispositif) and stresses the importance of everyday practises in understanding gambling:
“Brian [the interviewee] was particularly interested in the impact of technology, regulation and administration on his every day practises.
My decision to focus on the ‘apparatus’ of betting, is, therefore, determined, by his priorities.”88
Following the idea that dispositifs can be understood as answers to problems linked to the ensemble that is considered gambling in a certain society (in this case the Finnish society from the nineteenth throughout to the twenty-first century) I have formulated three dispositifs: prohibition dispositif, common good disposif, and risk dispositif.89 These dispositifs describe solutions to “problem” regarded as gambling that are contingent upon the socio-temporalcircumstances of the Finnish society. The names of
85 Lupton 2006, 98. See Nicoll 2013 as an example of the use of concept of governmentality in the gambling studies.
86 See Schnyder 2016, 108–109: ”Michel Foucault developed the concept of heterotopia in his essay ”Des espaces autres,” which he in wrote in 1967…- Unlike a utopia – which, as its name (Greek for ”no-place”) indicates, cannot be found in reality – a heterotopia is an ”other-place”
or ”counter-place” within the existing world - a demarcated area in which normal cultural and social life is simultaneously “represented, contested and inverted”:---- He shows how churchyards, gardens, museums, libraries, fairs and holiday villages can all be understood as heterotopias – as places in which general cultural and social phenomena are mirrored (and often critically mirrored), as it were, en miniature.”
87 Cassidy 2013, 43–45.
88 Cassidy 2013, 45.
89 See also article V.
the dispositifs reveal how gambling has been understood, practiced, and regulated in certain periods. They are also indicators of the change concerning gambling that has taken place in Finland.
The formulation of these dispositifs has been strongly influenced by the work of sociologist Sytze Kingma who has analysed the gambling regulation in the Netherlands90. In his own model Kingma talks of regimes by which he means “the ‘complex of institutional geography, rules, practice, and animating ideas that are associated with the regulation of a particular risk or hazard’”91. I find Kingma’s models innovative and also applicable to Finland (and to a certain extent also to Sweden). Whereas Kingma has concentrated solely on regulation in his own model, I have taken into account the ensemble of gambling (that means discourses and practises) in a Foucauldian manner based on my research on gambling in Finland. Kingma has named his models as prohibition model, alibi model, and risk model. The reason I decided to name the second dispositif as a common good dispositif and not as an alibi dispositif is that my analysis has shown that in Finland the understanding and practices related to gambling were quite different from Dutch ones.92
Kingma refers to the work of Thomas Kuhn and describes the rise of the risk model a part of a “paradigm shift” that replaces the former regulation model, which he calls the alibi model93. I dare to argue that my formulation differs from Kingma’s in this respect: I consider the dispositifs to be flexible, porous, and coincidental meaning that they overlap each other. In many cases it is difficult to analyse where one dispositif replaces the other.94 The discourses and practices inside one dispositif may sometimes be desynchronized: for example many people wanted to participate in the Swedish football pools in the 1930s despite the widespread attitude that Sweden was Finland’s sworn enemy in sports or that the introduction of
90 See Appendix 1 for Kingma’s three models of Dutch gambling regulation.
91 Kingma 2008, 446,citing Hood et al, 2001, 9.
92Kingma 2008, 447, states that ”In discourses characterized by alibis, gambling is still intrinsically controversial and considered a vice. Gambling can be legalized to avoid illegal markets, and the exploitation of gambling is severely restricted by discouraging the private pursuit of profit, and by allocating gambling revenues to social interests, such as welfare, sports and other ‘‘just causes.’’ Because of the restrictive policies and the central role of the government in organizing gambling markets, the alibi model closely aligns with the principles of the welfare state. The alibi model is best understood as an intermediary regulation model in between the risk model and the prohibition model, in which gambling is considered to be morally wrong and is legally opposed.” Cosgrave 2009, 58-59, refers to and accepts Kingma’s alibi model when analysing the way gambling has been understood, regulated and practiced in Canada. I argue that the Finnish dispositif of the same era differs from both the cases of the Netherlands and Canada since gambling was not considered a vice but was rather successfully tamed as every citizen’s duty.
93 Kingma 2008, 447.
94However, Kingma (2004, 63) stresses that “With regard to gambling, I chose not to emphasise the abolition of prohibitions and restrictions but the new controls that replaced the old strategies. These controls, based on ‘external effects’ and ‘risk analysis’, are a reaction to and an extension of earlier regulations. With the transformation of gambling policies there is a continuation in the direction of the structural development of gambling practices.” Thus Kingma also recognises the importance of continuance in his gambling models.
roulettes in the end of the 1960s was marketed as a chance to get rich overnight in a Monaco style, when in real life the bets and rules of the game of roulette were different from traditional luxurious casinos in continental Europe.95
I have made some adjustments, changes and additions to Kingma’s original model for it to better suit my own analysis of Finnish gambling dispositifs. I have to stress that my formulation of the dispositifs is ideal-typical in the sense that I have had to simplify the dispositifs and as such the dispositifs do not correspond to all of the characteristics of a certain dispositif. Whereas Kingma employs nine categories (time frame, moral meaning of gambling, political strategy, rationale for gambling law, destination of returns, central concern, exploitation, controlling institutions, and ideal typical state96) I use ten categories: time frame, moral meaning of gambling, destination of returns, rationale for regulation, controlling institutions, ideal typical state, class, gender, ideal-typical form of gambling, and ideal typical form of gambling space. By the category of time frame I roughly sketch the time period of a certain period, whereas moral meaning of gambling names the “dominant”
discourse related to gambling. The categories of destination of returns, rationale for regulation, controlling institutions and ideal typical state are related to the perspective of making and controlling risks, and regulating them. I have created the four new categories (class, gender, ideal typical form of gambling, ideal typical form of gambling space) to stress the importance of gambling’s classed and gendered nature, to highlight the importance of certain forms of gambling for a certain dispositif, and to emphasize the change in the gambling spaces that has taken place over my research period. These new categories are related both to the perspectives of making and taking risks in the Finnish society.
95 Kaartinen 2012, 295–296, has pointed out the same thing about the desynchronization of discourses and practices in her PhD that deals with women’s opinions and actions for and against the Finnish Prohibition (1919-1932). It was especially the representatives of the organized working class who were for the prohibition but the working class people were reluctant to obey the Prohibition regulation at a personal level. Thus, the practices differed from the discourse. See article I about the threat of Swedish football pools and article III about the introduction of roulettes in Finland.
96 Kingma 2008, 448. See Appendix 1.
TABLE 1. THE THREE GAMBLING DISPOSITIFS IN FINLAND (INSPIRED BY KINGMA 2008, 448; KINGMA 2002, AND MYLLYMAA 2017, 35).97
TIME FRAME Until 1920s 1920s to the 1990s 1990s onwards MORAL
MEANING OF GAMBLING
A sin Every citizen’s duty Entertainment/Addiction
DESTINATION OF RETURNS
Good causes (lotteries in
goods)
The welfare state The state
RATIONALE
The national state The national welfare state
Lotteries in goods Lotto Internet poker/sports betting
Furthermore, political scientist Antti Myllymaa has created his own model of gambling regulation in Europe adapting the model from Kingma and yours truly. Myllymaa states that by contrasting three models (in his case the
97 I discuss these three dispositifs and their categories in detail in the following parts of this summary.
prohibition model, the embedded liberal model and the neoliberal model) he is able to sum up the differences between these three ideal-typical models in broad strokes.98 What is interesting about Myllymaa’s model (and applicable also to Finland) is what he calls “import substitution”; how in the embedded liberal model the rationale for (de)regulation was to make sure that gambling took place solely in the confines of one’s own country thus guaranteeing that gambling revenues benefitted only the citizens of that particular country. The import substitution meant that all gambling import was banned or made difficult to participate in but also that citizens were given domestic options for gambling (for example the legalization of money lotteries in 1926 or the establishment of the gambling monopolies RAY and Veikkaus in 1938 and in 1940). Another interesting point Myllymaa makes in his comparison is the change in the ideal typical state that regulates gambling: the nation state has evolved through the national welfare state to the competition state, which now in many cases has allowed the private profit seeking and is export-oriented.99
1.5 DATA AND METHODS
I have used a variety of qualitative data to construe the Finnish gambling dispositifs. The idea has been to explore the entity understood as gambling from the perspectives of production (the regulation of gambling, gambling operators, technological changes affecting gambling), and consumption (the gamblers). The qualitative approach has been particularly helpful when I have prioritized questions that have been important for the research subjects when they have encountered gambling100.
My data include contemporary official memorandums (articles I, and II), newspaper and magazine articles (articles I, and II), Veikkaus’ archive materials such as research reports (article I), and photographs (article IV), RAY’s annual reports (article II), oral history data on gambling including New ways of life 1939; My best Payazzo memory 1998; Let’s save our lottery and betting lore 2000; Horse stories 2003; Oral history data on consumption 2007 (articles III and IV), Finnish fiction (articles I, and II), and auto-ethnographic observations (article IV). Article V is more of a compilation of my own previous research where no new data is introduced but I discuss a more theoretical approach. In addition to the above-mentioned data, I have relied on research literature on gambling especially concerning Finland and Sweden but also
98 Myllymaa 2017, 34.
99 Myllymaa 2017, 35.
100 Cassidy, Pisac, & Loussouarn 2013, 2.
Western gambling in general to give context to my findings and analysis. I have also made use of consumer culture studies and Finnish social history research.
My main method can be called historical approach by which I refer to using diverse and fragmented sources with a commitment to their relevance, reliability and validity and to different longitudinal and qualitative methods that recognize the possibility of change101. As no single data can give answers to my research questions I have used a mix data and depending on the data used different kind of methods to analyse them. In practise this has meant that I have in various ways categorized, coded, and critically close read my data depending on the data in question and my research questions. When doing so
My main method can be called historical approach by which I refer to using diverse and fragmented sources with a commitment to their relevance, reliability and validity and to different longitudinal and qualitative methods that recognize the possibility of change101. As no single data can give answers to my research questions I have used a mix data and depending on the data used different kind of methods to analyse them. In practise this has meant that I have in various ways categorized, coded, and critically close read my data depending on the data in question and my research questions. When doing so